


Red Palms

by empathy_junkie



Series: The Company Expanded [3]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Coffee, Drabble, Other, Short, quiet nights, the domestic tendencies of a man who wears a silver heart ring, unrequited romantic feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 19:56:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empathy_junkie/pseuds/empathy_junkie
Summary: from tumblr; ridiculously short and ridiculously self-indulgent. two years later I still like the way this reads.





	Red Palms

“I still don’t believe you don't own a coffee maker,” Shingo glanced over his shoulder as the faint smell of floral hair products engulfed his senses. After several years as one of his closets acquaintances, Mido had come to recognize it as an indication of Reiji’s presence.

Tonight he was thankful for it. He wasn’t always.

There was a sensation he had come to expect whenever it occurred - a tightening in his back and the brief feeling of having his mouth go dry. He would fight against it like a child fighting some great, dangerous curiosity that has been explicitly forewarned against.

But tonight, Reiji emerged in the doorway of his own apartment bearing two caffeinated beverages and a sour expression, and both conditions rendered Shingo’s typical mistrust virtually obsolete. It was a miracle he had been able to convince the other that coffee _was_ necessary when pulling a late night in the first place. This was a kind of victory.

The door closed gently and Shingo turned back to the blurred screen of his laptop. The man under scrutiny crossed the room and handed Shingo the larger of the two paper cups, speaking in a distracted sort of drawl, “If I do, I haven’t had the time to recover it.”

“From that hoard, I imagine?” Shingo reached up acquire his drink. Neither was paying attention to the exchange and Reiji’s fingers were pinched in the process.

“Sorry-”

“Some tasks can safely be put on hold, other’s can’t.”

The brown boxes, fitting together like some rudimentary form of modern art, took up a decent portion of Reiji’s small living-room, and had been distracting Shingo from the moment he had set foot in the place. For someone who appreciated nothing more than efficiency, excellence, and order in the workplace, he was surprised to find that the sales associate didn’t apply the same rules to his own home.

_Should I be?_

Shingo brought the steaming beverage to his lips, immediately recoiling at the temperature. “T-that’s an assessment you can only make once you know what basic, house-hold appliances you’re forcing yourself to live without.”

Reiji’s hand was resting on the desk now, to Shingo’s right. His ring fairly sparkled in the light from the monitor.

“We all require our different luxuries. I happen to require very few.”

Shingo hazarded another sip of coffee. “I won’t hazard a guess at what those are." 


End file.
